


Understanding The Calling

by MacBeth13



Category: Babylon 5
Genre: Gen, One Shot, Young Delenn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-08
Updated: 2010-07-08
Packaged: 2017-11-06 08:46:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/416985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MacBeth13/pseuds/MacBeth13
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Um, little Delenn in a missing moment. Small spoiler from Grey 17 Is Missing that is the inspiration for this little one-shot. </p>
            </blockquote>





	Understanding The Calling

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Characters belong to J.M. Straczynski, writing genius that he is, and we can only hope to aspire to be half as good. Just borrowing characters I love for play.

 

 

Delenn stood silently behind the doorway to her parent’s bedroom. She listened intently to her mother packing the last of her things she would need for where she was going. Her father was watching his wife, refusing to leave her side until the last possible moment. He had tried to explain many times to Delenn that her mother leaving to follow the calling of her heart in joining the Sisters of Valeria was an honour. That she should be happy for her mother.

Delenn knew that she should listen to her father’s words. She had been going to temple with her parents for as long a she could remember and she knew it was great honour for her mother to join the Sisters of Valeria but that didn’t subside the hurting in her heart. She tried as hard as she could to put on a brave face, to act happy when in her parents’ presence. When she was alone in her room, though, she cried silently so they would not hear.

Footsteps warned Delenn that her parents were nearing the doorway she was hiding behind. She quickly and quietly scampered off back to her room. She was supposed to be studying about important Religious Caste ceremonies and under normal circumstances they would fascinate her but not now.

“Delenn!” her father called for her.

Delenn hurried to the entrance hallway of her family’s small home. Her mother stood by the front door with her one bag of essential things she had packed. Personal effects were not needed at the Temple of Valeria. Delenn looked to her father, he stood in stony silence near her mother.

“Come here, Delenn,” her mother instructed. Delenn stepped forward. Her mother knelt down to her level. “Delenn, I want you to have something,” her mother said, “it’s something special from me to you, to remind you of me when I am away.” Delenn looked at the object in her mother’s hand; it was a beautiful crystal and metal charm, a pin adornment that her mother had worn whenever she could. Her mother pinned the charm to the front of Delenn’s robes. “Promise me you’ll wear it often and think of me when you do.”

“I promise, Mother,” Delenn said, swallowing back the burning feeling in her throat and blinking back the stinging in her eyes that warned her of the tears she did not want to shed.

“Make sure you and your father take care of each other. Keep up with your studies. Make your family proud, Delenn.”

“I will, Mother, I promise,” Delenn told her, her voice fading on the last few words as she struggled with her emotions. She hugged her and then Delenn saw tears in her mother’s eyes as she pressed their foreheads together in a gentile loving gesture. Her mother stood up and Delenn felt bereft at the loss of contact. She watched as her mother kissed her father then embraced him one last time.

Delenn’s mother picked up her bag and opened the door. Delenn moved to the doorway to watch her mother walk away. She could feel her father’s hand on her shoulder. It was getting harder to breathe past the lump in her throat and the burning in her chest. Control lost in the battle of internal will and emotion won out. Delenn broke away from her father and ran after her mother.

“Mother! Mother, don’t leave me!” Delenn cried as she ran down the pebbled walk. Her mother turned around and Delenn caught up to her. “Don’t leave me, Mother! Don’t you love me? Don’t you love father? Don’t you love us?!” Delenn cried at her, tears of anger and pain streaming down her cheeks as she pulled on her mother’s robes.

“Of course I love you. I love you both very much, you know that.” She ran her hand down the side of Delenn’s cheek, gazing down at her face as if to lock it into her memory. “I love you very much and I always will. I know it’s hard for you to understand now that I must follow the calling of my heart to join the Sisters of Valeria. It is where I need to be.”

“I need you. Mother,” Delenn told her defiantly.

“No, little one, you don’t need me; you want me to be here but you don’t need me,” she told her daughter and Delenn bit back the retort to tell her she was wrong. Her mother kissed her on the top of her head and then she stood up. “I must follow the calling of my heart, it is important that I do. Someday, Delenn, when you are older you will understand what it means to follow the calling or your own heart even if it feels as though to do so will tear your world apart.”

Delenn watched as her mother walked away from her and out of sight. Delenn stood there for some time feeling numb and alone. A quiet sniff made her turn around to see her father still standing in the doorway. She walked back to him afraid of punishment for her outburst.

“I am sorry, Father. I tried to be strong but I -”

“It is all right, Delenn,” he said as he took her into a loving fatherly embrace. “Sometimes one cannot help but to speak passionately from the heart., a talent you are quite adept at.” Delenn looked up at him in gratitude of understanding. “It would seem that it is just you and I now, Delenn.”

“Yes, Father,” she nodded and sniffed.

“I love you, Delenn, you do know that?”

“Yes, I do. You know that I love you?”

“Oh, yes, yes, very much,” he said with a watery smile and a soft laugh. “Let’s say you and I spend the day together tomorrow. Would you like that? We can go to Tuzanor, yes?”

“I would like that very much,” Delenn said as she hugged him again. She couldn’t help but wonder if she might be able to forget some of her pain in Tuzanor, the City of Sorrows.

          


End file.
